Dumb question - how to test an electric fan?

[AJMBLAZER]

Again with the not-truck questions but my buddy's Kia has an electric fan. His original has a bad bearing and wobbles bad. We got a replacement from the junkyard but now we're having issues with it. We've seen it work but not it seems like it doesn't want to. Thought it was the wires so replaced them but that doesn't seem to be it. The motor is pretty damn well encapsulated but how do we test the motor and the system to see if it's even getting juice?

Just stick the probes from the multimeter against each end of the plug and see?

It's late, I shouldn't be posting or thinking.

 

[bp71k5]

You can test the fan itself my hooking the power and ground wire to your battery. If it spins, it's good.

You can test the wiring by attaching the multimeter leads to the same leads that provide power to the fan and see if it's picking up +12V.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Like Brian said, hook each terminal to the battery (1 to positive and 1 to negative) and if the motor is good it will spin.

The vehicle side of things is a little more tricky since there is a Thermal switch for the fan control. If you've seen this fan work outside of the vehicle in question but it doesn't seem to work IN the vehicle i'll lay bets that the Thermal switch is bad.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

Well, the old fan worked fine, but it shook and shuddered due to the bad bearing and missing half a blade. This new one has turned on, we saw that once, but doesn't seem to work as it should as it doesn't turn on as often as the original fan. Makes me think bad wiring or connectors since the only time we saw it work was right after we were playing with the connector.

We also unplugged the new fan that wasn't on and then plugged in the old fan when the engine was about at the high end of the operating range and it went right to (shuddering) life.

 

[ryoken]

sounds like the plug on the new fan...

 

[AJMBLAZER]

We got it nice and hot a little bit ago and put the multimeter on the vehicle side of the connector. Was getting juice/signal just fine. Fan wouldn't work.

We cut off the old fan's leads and wired it in but now I'm doubting how well we did the connections. I'm going to try rewiring our late night job last night and then jumpering it to the battery.

 

[BUDDY]

Cut the plug off the old fan & splice it onto the new fan. Make sure you crimp it good & tight & wrap it up with some good 3m electrical tape or heat shrink if you can.

Later,
Buddy

 

[AJMBLAZER]

We cut off the old fan's leads and wired it in but now I'm doubting how well we did the connections. I'm going to try rewiring our late night job last night and then jumpering it to the battery.

Didn't work.

We made jumpers to the fan's connector and put it directly to the battery. Nada. Then we cut the connector off and jumped the wires directly. Nada. Then we cut the new fan's wires below where I crimped them to the original fan's wires and jumped it directly to the batter. Nada.
Dead fan apparently. I pulled the rubber plug out that was at the back of the motor where the wires went in and it looked a bit dark in there. Thinking this thing got hot at some point and it died or only works when it wants to.

The yard seems to be saying they're sending us another.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

They are sending another, should be here on Wednesday. Good peoples.